Missions & Complexes

By all means then, explain it.

In what way is buying PLEX not the same as paying a sub. In actuallity a PLEX cost more than a normal sub, So paying with PLEX puts more cash in CCP's pocket.

It is completely irrelevant if the PLEX was paid for by the person or account it was used on. It was paid for either way. Now there are far more ways to spend a PLEX than just on game time, but every PLEX in game was paid for with real money. That PLEX represents 1 month of paid game time, no matter who paid for it, who used it, or what they used it for. if you use PLEX to sub your account, CCP was still paid for that month of game time. As I said, whether or not it was bought by the player that used it is irrelevant.

That being said, as far as I am concerned isboxer is as close to botting as you can get without completely removing the human element. You basically have an automated program than is watching your actions, and copying them onto multiple other clients. What is stoping you from pluging a keyboard emulator into isboxer and automating the whole thing. If they can detect botting programs than they can detect isboxer, but they can not see past isboxer to see if it is actually a human or a bot at the controls.

The big issue is this is a very slippery slope. They can not just blanket ban all third party programs. EVE wouyld be near unplayable with zero tolerance for 3rd party programs, hence the API and third party tools. Not to mention that would include things like fraps and mumble or teamspeak. It can be argued that groups that use third party voice coms had an unfair advantage just as much as isboxer users, over those who do not have access to such. But really voice coms programs do nothing to hurt the game, but infact encourage the social interaction the game designers want to see.

there are as many reasons to support isboxer as there are to ban it. We could argue about it for years and reach no agreement. In fact I believe its use has been argued about for years already. Regardless what anyone believes, CCP has decided they do not object to its use. It is there decision to make. We are playing their game. I you do not like how they decide to run the game, feel free to leave. Personally I believe they would lose far more subs if they banned isboxer than they would if every one that hates it left.

You're assuming that

A. The person paid CCP for the PLEX with the sole intention of selling it to you (not anyone else, you).

or

B. The person will turn around and buy another PLEX from CCP because you paid him ISK for the first.

You have no basis for that assumption and these are the only ways you'd get direct equivalence. In reality, your in-game purchase has some net effect on the real-money PLEX market as well as the subscription market. It could equate to more than $20 for CCP, it could equate to less than $20 for CCP, it could equate to nothing at all for CCP. I'd wager that it equates to less than $20 for CCP, but obviously we don't have enough information to judge.

Exactly, and since the exchange would go on unhindered if you hadn't personally bought the PLEX, you can't assume a one-to-one correspondence.



I agree. Unfortunately, your argument hinges on it.



Are you trying to be cute with the air-quotes? It's ambiguous whether you mean buying the PLEX from CCP or on the in-game market if you don't specify.



I was obviously rounding; if you're just going to nit-pick in lieu of a coherent argument, I'd appreciate if you made good on your promise to leave.

I am finding it hard to start here.. so here goes.

I dont have problem with PLEX, I use to sell quite a few of them, when I could afford it, just for the fast ISK infusion, which allowed me to do more fun stuff.

Thankfully this topic isn't about PLEX's.

I dont have a problem with Alts or multiboxing either, I know quite alot of people there is multiboxing, and doing it quite well. Either with two screens or tabbing between two or more windows.

Thankfully this topic isn't about multiboxing.



This I do agree with, what ISBoxing is, is an automated program, there is copying mouseclicks and keystrokes, to dublicate them to other clients to mimic your ship.



You are right, they can't just ban ALL 3rd party programs. But they really should look very closely into this one when they get around to it, because it is so far into making a program play your game that it isn't even a grey area anymore.
You bring up some examples, so lets give them some context.

You are sitting in a site blowing up red dots, and Fraps stops working, can you still continue to play your game with your multibox's as efficient as you did before ?

You are sitting in a site blowing up red dots, and Mumble stops working, can you still continue to play your game with your multibox's as efficient as you did before ?

You are sitting in a site blowing up red dots, and Teamspeak stops working, can you still continue to play your game with your multibox's as efficient as you did before ?

You are sitting in a site blowing up red dots, and ISBox stops working, can you still continue to play your game with your multibox's as efficient as you did before ?

Can you spot which of the above examples, got a program playing their game for them ?



Actually I dont think it will hurt EVE a whole lot if all their subs were banned, the minerals prices would go up a bit for a while, but that would be about it.

ISBoxer is not *that* important topic in plex sales. ie there are more people who will buy plex with isk if plex price drops due to less support from heavy iskboxers - ie having 500 isboxer accounts from 20 players stop subbing, will not cause 500 less plexes to be bought from CCP and sold for isk to other players in a month. The actual sensitivity is much smaller.

so what about the logitech and razer (eve sponsor?) macro keyboards/mouses? you can do the same stuff as with isboxer with them.

the real advantage of isboxer is, that its way more easy to setup and getting started. but the possibilities are almost the same (except the gamewindow formations, but you can do that with other tools).


so the reason to ban isboxer would be that it is easier to setup?

Oh gosh, no way... I didn't think there'd be an ******* like this that does it in Eve.
This thing falls in the gray area that nobody seems to want to tackle, neither Blizzard, nor CCP, nor any other MMO developer.
But eventually somebody HAS to. And I'd rather it were CCP that did.

You are missing the point.

Every PLEX in Game regardless of who owns it, bought it, sold it, used it for game time, used it for other account services or offers, every one was paid for with real money before it was generated in game. Every single PLEX represents a month of paid game time. Whether CCP got the money for that PLEX yesterday or 3 years ago is irrelivent. It is still one month of paid game time. Evey PLEX in game was paid for with real money. whether it is used for game time, horded, or destroyed, CCP was paid for that month of game time. It does not matter who i buy the PLEX from, CCP was paid cash for it when it was created.

And the price? WTF are you talking about? A PLEX costs about $20 to buy. I occasionally get them through a sale for $17. If you buy a large volume they can be even a little cheaper. I currently pay $39.95 for 3 months game time with auto payments, that works out to less than $14 per month. I think full price is around $15 per month.

So no matter how you look at it CCP gets paid more for a months game time purchased through PLEX then they do through a normal subscription. I expect this is to offset the fact that that PLEX could go months or years before the game time is claimed. But the value in real money is still there. The price fluctuations in game as to how much isk a PLEX is worth have no impact on the actual value of PLEX in real money. the Price of PLEX when bought with real money does not change, aside from special sales and discounts CCP occasionally offers. The in game market fluctuations do not change the value of PLEX in real money. If anything it is the opposite, The isk value of PLEX in game can be used to determine the actual value in game isk through conversion of PLEX. it is the value of isk that changes, not the value of PLEX.

The point is a month of game time is a month of game time. trying to say that someone who pays for game time through PLEX is less valuable to CCP than someone who pays a normal subscription is just wrong. A month of payed game time is a month of payed game time, CCP does not care where the money comes from, as long as the game time is paid. If the PLEX was bought 5 years ago, it was still payed for with real money, and still holds the same value when it is used.

This is all very simple.

CCP allows ISboxer because it makes them more money, and money is ALL a company cares about. (Every company does.) So they allowed it. Same with the old moniclegate and CEO letter leak, they flat out said they didn't give a sh*t what players wanted, till they lost 30% of the companies income because of it, then they did almost a 180 turn.

Till ISboxer and such causes them to LOSE money, they will continue to allow it, because it generates them more money.